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Friday, January 10, 2014

The ROBLOX Catalog and Events in Review: 2013

Image courtesy of Chris7198

The ROBLOX Catalog underwent major changes in the year of 2013, such as a new design and having more sales. Some big features, such as the price floor, owning multiples of one limited, and DevEx greatly affected the ROBLOX economy. This article is meant to be a precise outline on exactly everything catalog-related that happened on ROBLOX in 2013.Worth noting:-The Egg Hunt was okay, but found it to be too easy with literally no rareeggs. Whist site population is partly to blame, the Fabergés spawned too regularly. -The Witching Hour was literally the worst Halloween Event of all time, this is not an exaggeration. It did showcase the new consumables feature - (yay microtransactions /sarcasm). -Dev-EX made a dent in large limited values, with users desperate to sell their items so that they can exchange their robux for real cash, they are slowing recovering. Smaller limiteds weren't really affected. -2013 Christmas Gifts were stated to be much more accessible this year by Brad Justus, he was right. Good job with them guys!

- LOTM became the most failing hat of the year (sorry IBarrageI) - Clockwork's Shades FINALLY go limited - Bluesteel Bathysphere woohoo!!!- though it didn't profit much. - Red Stetson went on saleJune- Midsummer's Night Sale; third major sale of the year - New concept; sale was a literal "night sale" - Midnight Blue Shaggy most projected limited of 2013 - then promptly failed, lol. - Midnight Blue Sparkle Time Fedora (gosh there are too many of these) - Hats/faces/gears themed on night but nothing super specialJuly- Percy Jackson promo; regarded as worst promo ever - literally - Fourth of July Items; not many but new shaggy- A series of three BLOXcons around the world begins, starting at ChicagoAugust- The second BLOXcon takes place in London - Retro Weekend mini-sale - Linked Sword comes out with 100 in stock - Chronoinitium, 50k robux and 50 stock. Somewhat won. - Blackvalk, the 1 million ticket hat comes out- Labor Day Sale; fourth major sale of the year - Teapot back on sale but NOT ruined; priced at a ridiculous 20k - Mr. Hatbot made limited and failed - Bluesteel Domino went limited; Red Domino went limited only a month or two ago - Glitched hats LOLzard and Leopard Fedora re-released - Black Iron Bucket; was 13337 robux and timed. - Duke of the Federation; 100k and 25 in stock- The final BLOXcon takes placd in New York City

September- The ROBLOX Online Shop launches; you can buy IRL stuff and get virtual stuff along with it. - Outfits, a feature by Merely, launches- Price floor raised- Virtual BLOXcon - an online livestream of a BLOXcon, starts. Filled with Q&A, staff gameplay and Halloween event newsOctober- 13 Gifts of October (rebranded as BLOXtober) begins - Prices started cheap but became very expensive for final gifts - Cheaper and better than last year's gifts - Big gift was Doomsekkar (31k like usual) - Also to note: Blizzaria went back on sale for the ENTIRE month.- Price floor lowered slightly, but is still 100 Tix- Sound uploading feature released- Practically ALL packages are now available to all users (no longer BC only)- BLOXtober Costume Contest launched- Witching Hour released - Game is unlike previous games - Involves doing quests for admins to earn their bloxikins - Quests involved fighting monster AIsm - MANY buyable addons to help make the game easier - Introduced new features like consumables - The game in general had negative reception due to how the admins implemented the concept, the failed launch of the game, the many bugs with the game at first, and the many buyable things for it, not to mention the poor gameplay which focused on grinding the same task again and again.... and AGAIN.November- Parallel Universe weekend; some textures were leaked but nothing big actually came out - Bright Friday Sale; fifth major sale of the year - Happened a week before Black Friday Sale - Focus was on "bright items" - W's Top Hat back on sale; sorta ruined but not really- see black friday - Green Checkered Bow Tie re-released - Lime Green Shaggy came out - Dr. Ishmael, a white version of Mr. Tentacles, came out for 9k. Went limited after timer expired. - New white kleos came out- Philippines Hats came out- Thanksgiving Turkey Hunt relaunched but with new prizes.- Black Friday Sale; sixth major sale of the year and usually regarded as the biggest sale - Frenemy on sale - W's Top Hat went limited and surprisingly won - Bluesteel Antlers; 20k robux and timed - Brilliant Bombastique; ugly retexture timed for 15 minutes and only 100 robux - Hooded Frostlord; retexture by Errorless and big item of 2013: was 50k robux with 55 in stock, and fails - lol - Silverthorn Antlers put on sale again for 400 robux - Black Iron Warhelm went limited - Junior Tentacles on sale - Xanwood Chicken; start of a new seriesDecember- Giftsplosion 2013 begins - Some gifts based on new features; however not like 2012, and not all are about new features - 13 gifts in total - Almost all of the gifts are meant to be obtainable by anyone (even NBC) - Not all gifts are easy; some are actually challenging to earn - Gift prices were ridiculously expensive, putting an emphasis on gift earning - Big gift was for using DevEx; priced at 50k, opened to be Dominus Aureus - Statistics show that the Gift of Passage is now the most owned hat on ROBLOX- Percy Jackson game reopens- Christmas defend the fort style game by Team Rudimentality opens with prizes- The ROBLOX Stocking comes out on Christmas; opened up later to be a Santa hat- Year wraps up with some after-Christmas items (for people to spend their newly received Robux); bundle packages released, a new nonlimited shaggy released, sk12r, a new noob attack, both a festive periastron and an energy sword, and another Xanwood hat (that failed).2014- Cloud 9 promo begins the year- Winter Games slated to start soon; will make use of universes and be the first (or second counting the christmas event) fully user-made event.

Personal RegardsAfter ending 2012 with a failed Christmas gift, I don't think any had in mind how much better 2013 would be for the ROBLOX catalog. The increase in sales in total was as a whole a great improvement to the catalog, and many of the sale items were received positively. The Sparkle Time Fedora series gained two new additions this year, the GSTF and the MBSTF, which I'd hope are the last of the series. (Interestingly enough, two other sparkle times were leaked this year, one during the parallel universe weekend and another at the end of the year, but neither came out). After the GSTF was released, rare item pricing was changed. At first rare items in the year were timed, and then went limited after the timer was down. This clearly failed though if you look at the Lord of the Magma, so it was changed later so that the rare item was LimitedU and was originally 50k robux. This seems to be the new standard for limiteds, but these 50k limiteds have both won and lost, making new rare items somewhat dangerous to buy.

The first sale, the President's Day Sale, I believe as a whole was good but had room for improvement. Releasing Blizzaria and putting Biggerhead back on sale definitely made the community happy, but events such as releasing the unexpected Scytheface for 10k and making the Dark Cerulean Crown limited made it seem like the event wasn't planned out fully. The second sale was okay; it had a better schedule but the items were "mostly" good. The Midsummer Night Sale I'd say had much better items than the previous two sales, but I disliked it for the fact that you had to stay up all night. (it's not really good for people to stay up late on gaming). The Labor Day Sale I'll say was definitely the worst of the sales, nothing was appealing and the things that were somewhat appealing were way too expensive. Bright Friday was my favorite sale, I felt like the hats and theme were "done right" and it was all affordable. Black Friday was not bad (2011's Black Friday is still the best, by far) but I did like that they did more hats based on classic series, and brought more classics back on sale. I must admit though, some hats were too expensive again. BLOXtober (not counting the game) and Giftsplosion were MUCH better: the gifts and prizes themselves were great, and the Christmas gifts weren't just about new features. So overall, I'd say that this was a strong year for ROBLOX's catalog and I wouldn't be surprised if 2014's sales and events and whatnot was even better than 2013.tl;dr versionThe catalog improved greatly with the new sales and both the Halloween and Christmas gifts. The sales started okay but got much better as they went along, and the gifts for both Halloween and Christmas had improved quality and were planned out much better than last year.-NonstopEpic, Arbirator and pbjms